


More Than Meets the Eye

by dixie_drifter



Series: A Little Slice of the Kingdom [3]
Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 21:26:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18747427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixie_drifter/pseuds/dixie_drifter
Summary: J and Adrian do recon for a job, and J tries to determine how much trouble Adrian could cause to his plans.





	More Than Meets the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place sometime in the months (weeks?) after S3.

Rolling his neck to relieve the tension, J dropped his food on the outdoor table before pulling himself onto one of the ridiculously high chairs set around the brightly colored, wooden beach table. Scouting the location for the next wasn’t going as smoothly as they had intended it to. The marijuana dispensary they had in mind was just one of a larger chain that had slowly, but surely, been expanding and pushing the “mom ‘n’ pop” dispensaries out of business. Which meant their cash flow was a lot more flush than the others. It also meant they were cocky enough to stick to a semi-alternating schedule for the money pick-up. All the Cody boys had to do was figure out a way to be the one variable their paid security couldn’t imagine. Something that was beginning to be easier said then done, but the almost million dollar pay off was to good to pass off.

 

J picked up his iced tea, and pulled a mouthful through the straw. He gagged immediately and turned to spit the nasty drink on the ground.

 

“Ugh. That’s disgusting.”

 

“I told you not to trust their drinks. They’ve got some of the best food on the square, but the only ones dumb enough to buy a drink are the tourists. Here.”

 

J looked up at the man offering him a lemonade from a completely different food stand. He took the offered drink with a nod.

 

“Yeah, I wasn’t paying attention to my order. I just picked what sounded good.” He lifted the plastic cup in a kind of salute, “Thanks.”

 

“No problem.”

 

When Pope, of all people, had suggested Adrian to tag along today, no one had been more surprised then Adrian himself. The man had actually laughed out loud before realizing that Pope was being as serious as the heart attack they had been planning to give to one of the guards. Adrian had immediately and vehemently said no and gone back to drying the dishes Deran was handing him after one of Smurf’s very uncomfortable lunches that only Craig seemed to enjoy. Deran had talked him into it, by promising it was observation only, and that he would get him out of the next planned lunch.

 

They had arrived half an hour ago and played tourist for the entire time. Popping in and out of surrounding stores, taking ridiculous selfies strategically placed with security cameras in the background. Now they were studying shifts in the guards under the guise of sampling the food truck and stands around the square. It was strange to say the least. J had no idea what kind of player Adrian was, or if he was even on the board.

 

J looked at the styrofoam take out container Adrian had set down followed by his own lemonade. Some kind of seasoned veggie stir fry. Completely unappealing compared to the fries J himself had gotten that were loaded with pulled pork and a blue cheese sauce.

 

“Its my penance.”

 

J blinked, focusing on the startlingly clear blue eyes of the other man. Eyes that held amusement just on the surface, cloaking anything else that could be used to fathom him out.

 

“What? Why?”

 

Adrian chewed and swallowed his first bite before answering. “This,” he said with a way of his white plastic fork toward the plate.

 

When J didn’t offer anything but a raised brow, Adrian snorted and stabbed a piece of zucchini.

 

“Last night, I let Deran talk me into making my grandmother’s shrimp and grits for dinner. Cheesy grits, shrimp saute d in more butter than one person has a right to consume. Didn’t really put up that much of a fight, to be honest, but I mean, gotta balance it all out, right?”

 

It was a simple answer, honest and clear. And it gave absolutely nothing away about the man across from him. J figured he needed to at least walk away from this with a better understanding of someone who could potentially be a threat to his plans. All day long, Adrian’s easy going nature had slid comfortably into place with the alertness and tactical prowess needed to stake out such a potentially dangerous job. He was obviously as much of a con as the Cody boys, as J himself. Craig and Pope had no problems using him as a stand in. Deran’s only hang-up had been out of concern for Adrian to be tying himself to the job, not his lack of skill. J wondered what it would take to crack the cliché California surfer veneer, and find something he could manipulate if he needed to.

 

“I don’t think it works that way.”

 

Adrian shrugged. “Power of positive thinking, and all that bullshit. Whatever,” he said before taking another mouthful of vegetables.

 

“Shrimp and grits?” J asked.

 

“A southern staple. We moved here from New Orleans when I was twelve. Met Deran and Alex maybe a year later. Three of us have been friends ever since, mostly because no one else could ever keep up. The shit we got up to, though? Probably better for them.” Adrian grinned disarmingly. “But I always liked it better here, always been a beach bum at heart, but I’ll admit the food back in Louisiana is the only thing I ever missed.”

 

“Its not really a secret,” he continued when he saw the look on J’s face. He laughed, “I’m not pouring my heart out or anything. Anyone who’s been around the surf scene since then will tell you. I mean, it took years before I lost my accent. It comes out sometimes when I’m tired or pissed. Deran likes it, so sometimes he tries to rile me up so I’ll slip, but I can see him coming a mile away.”

 

J shoveled a couple more bites into his mouth before picking up the one piece of Adrian’s explanation that could potentially bear fruit.

 

“Who’s Alex?”

 

Adrian paused with fork in midair. He blinked in confusion before laughing again. It was a carefree sound, and if J hadn’t seen first hand how the man could slip seamlessly into a role meant to con something from someone he’d write Adrian off as harmless.

 

“That’s right, you haven’t met her yet have you?” He asked pointing a speared mushroom at J, before eating it quickly and continuing. “Oh, that’s going to be fun. She’ll be back home for the first time in years in a couple of weeks. She’ll definitely have fun with you.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Alexandra Caravantes, the missing piece of me and Deran. But don’t ever call her that if you wanna keep your balls where they are. Its just Alex. She’s great, really, one of my two favorite people, knives and all.”

 

“Knives? Wait,” J paused to search his brain for the information that had clicked when he'd heard the woman’s name. “Alex Caravantes? Are you talking about the surfer, Alex Caravantes?”

 

He gaped helplessly for a moment when Adrian nodded around the straw he was pulling lemonade through. Alex Caravantes was without a doubt one of the best surfers in the world. It was well known she was from Oceanside, but to find out she ran with his uncle was another thing all together.

 

Adrian set his drink down. “World champion four times over, swimsuit model, sunscreen endorser. But that’s just what the rest of the world sees. You’ll get to meet her as we know her, and soon too. I’d tell you to brace yourself, but it wouldn’t do any good. You can’t stop a hurricane, you just clean up after it.”

 

J mentally added the mysterious Alex to his list of potential distractions or troublemakers. “Why doesn’t she come back around? You said she hadn’t been back for a while? I mean, if you guys are that close, and have been for years.”

 

J watched Adrian watch him, wondering if he get a straight answer from the other man. There was more to Adrian than anyone he’d met in this life yet. It seemed that every poke and prod J made, and every answer Adrian gave only left bigger questions behind. He felt like Adrian was finding more about him and his motives, than the other way around. And since Adrian had been relatively quiet all day, that was saying something. Whatever Adrian saw, if anything, he made no indication.

 

“She left because of Deran. A few years ago, right around the time we got back from Belize.”

 

J was careful not to react other than a nod as he reached for his drink. Adrian’s answer was pointed, like he was looking for his own weak spots in J’s reactions to poke and prod. Laying out the truth, but nothing that would leave either himself or Deran blowing in the wind. Nothing that would bruise or wound if turned back on them.

 

“Said she couldn’t stay and watch him let Smurf twist him into something hateful and cruel. Honestly, I’m surprised either of them walked away that day without throwing a punch.”

 

J went back to his food when Adrian did. After a few more bites of his fries (and really, the tea may have been swamp water, but the pork could win awards), J leaned forward. So far he’d learned next to nothing, but he didn’t want the day of scouting to be a total loss. He may as well start with the most obvious route of seemingly innocent questioning.

 

Before J could open his mouth, Adrian met his gaze, his mouth quirked in resignation.

 

“You may as well ask. I know I would in your shoes.”

 

J took it in stride, not letting his surprise show. “Why give Deran a second chance? Even new and improved Deran. I mean, even if he did it for you, changed for you, has he really had that much of a turnaround that it would be worth it after--”

 

“Okay, first,” Adrian interrupted, “be careful throwing stones in glass houses. Second, it wasn’t about me. It was about Deran. If he had done it for me—coming out, taking steps to finally pry Smurf’s nails from his skin—I wouldn’t have trusted it. Trusted him.”

 

Adrian paused to sip some lemonade, and finish his stir fry. He slid the empty plate off to the side and leaned on the table, chewing absently on his straw. His demeanor was open; there was nothing to insinuate he was bothered by the question. Nothing that said his answers were being twisted into something meant for manipulation the way most conversations J had lately tended to lean toward.

 

“Its not that Deran is ‘new and improved’ like you said. He’s not a different person, not Deran 2.0 or anything like that. He’s just… _Deran_ again. Over the years, we’ve dealt out our fair share of violence and anger towards each other. Alex, too. We’re family, the three of us. In a way that meant more than our shitty blood relations because we chose each other. Over and over and over. 

 

“Deran would have sooner knocked your teeth down your throat then talk if you questioned him about something he didn’t want to talk about, but he was also the guy that would sit and pick out pecans all day on the porch with my grandmother. Oh, he’d bitch about. All freaking day, but the never missed a pecan. And he sure as hell never missed a piece of the pecan pie she would make us while we surfed. I picked a shit ton of fights when I was younger, venting my anger, and no matter who I went up against or how many Deran would be right there with that shit eating grin watching my back.

 

“Internal homophobia is dangerous, sometimes more than when it comes from others. Before Belize, Deran was hardly on Smurf’s radar unless she had a particular job for him. Its the way he liked it. We could get away with a lot when she wasn’t breathing down his neck. When we got back, she honed in on him, and never let him go. The panic of being constantly watched, it feeds that monster inside. The one that whispers, ‘They know, they know, they know.’ Lashing out in self preservation so that maybe that voice will be silenced, living with the consequences when the only thing it did was deepen the self hatred which strengthens the anger in a never ending cycle. It had to boil over sometime. Alex left because she was afraid of losing him for good when that happened. Neither of us could have known that breaking point is what would bring  _our_ Deran back to us.

 

“You’ll never find me making excuses for him, for his actions. You’ll never see me let him off easy; never have, never will. But I’m not going to hide how goddamn proud of him I am. Or how much Deran, as he is, means to me.”

 

Adrian piled his empty plate and cup on top of J’s. J hadn’t given much away during Adrian’s musings, but anyone could see the wheels turning in his head as he stored the information. Adrian fought not to roll his eyes, sitting back in the chair.

 

“I know Deran better than anyone, with the exception of Alex and maybe Craig, and if I knew he wouldn’t want you to know any of that,that he cared if you did, I’d have kept my mouth shut. But Deran likes you. He may only trust you as far as Smurf could throw you, but he likes you. And he doesn’t give a shit that you have your eyes on taking the whole operation out from under Smurf’s nose.”

 

J’s eyes snapped up, locking on to Adrian’s impenetrable blue gaze. “I’m--” 

 

Adrian held up a hand. “What part of ‘don’t care’ don’t you understand?” 

 

J sat up straighter, unsure how it had been turned around him so quickly. 

 

“I’m not the weak spot, J. I’m not a piece on the board to move between you and Smurf for whatever distraction you think well deter her from getting what she thinks she’s owed. I’m here for Deran. End of story. There’s no way to use that for what you want, so just move on to the next play in your book. Do that, and you’ll be surprised at just how well we might actually get along. You just might be looking at the one person who wants Smurf gone more than you.”

 

Adrian stood and scooped their trash up. “I’ll dump this, you think about where you want to go from here.”

 

J didn’t watch him walk away. He known all day that he was being studied in the same way he in turn had been studying Adrian, but he hadn’t taken into account the things Adrian had seen in the short time he’d become nearly fully immersed in the Cody family. While J didn’t like to be taken by surprise, he liked discovering things that came out of left field. Things Smurf wouldn’t believe could be used against her, because she wouldn’t believe anyone could see her past the masks she wore. 

 

He got up to meet Adrian and head toward the truck. He in no way believed Adrian could truly want Smurf out of the way in the same way J himself did. She was still Deran’s mother, there would always be a bond there no matter how thin and ragged it got. But he wondered just what information, what kind of minuscule details Adrian had stored away that could chip away at Smurf’s hold on her entire organization. He knew Deran might play a larger part in bringing down Smurf, but he had assumed Adrian was to Deran what Catherine had been to Baz. He had been extremely wrong in that regard. If anything, going forward he would have to look at them as partners. Where one went, the other would always know. 

 

He was definitely going to find out for sure. 


End file.
